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Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded
Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded is the second studio album by hip hop artist Nicki Minaj. It was released on April 2, 2012 in standard and deluxe editions through Universal Republic Records (Universal Music Group), Young Money Entertainment, and Cash Money Records. Minaj worked on the album with a variety of producers such as Hit-Boy, Dr. Luke, Ester Dean, Rico Beats, RedOne and Oak. Minaj also worked with several artists including Cam’ron, Rick Ross, 2 Chainz, Lil Wayne, Nas, Drake, Young Jeezy, Chris Brown, Bobby V, and Beenie Man. The album's music is divided by the first half's hip hop tracks and the second half's pop and dance songs, the latter of which incorporates disco, teen pop, R&B, Eurodance, Europop, and dance-pop styles. The album's lead single, "Starships", premiered during On Air with Ryan Seacrest on February 14, 2012 and was released to iTunes on the same day. Starships debuted at number 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaked at number 5, marking her second solo arrival in the Top 10 of the chart, after "Super Bass". "Starships" also managed to reach the Top 10 in several countries worldwide. The album's second single, "Right by My Side" featuring Chris Brown impacted US Rhythmic and Urban radio on March 27, 2012. "Beez in the Trap" featuring 2 Chainz officially impacted US Urban radio on April 24, 2012 as the third single. Minaj confirmed in March 2012 that the album will be promoted through the Pink Friday Tour, which will begin in May 2012, starting in Australia. Background The album puts focus on the return of Roman Zolanski, one of Minaj's alter egos that was first featured on her 2010 debut album, Pink Friday. Cash Money co-CEO, Brian "Birdman" Williams announced to Billboard that Minaj was aiming for a first quarter release in 2012. In November 2011, Minaj announced on Twitter that the album would be released on February 14, 2012, but later in January 2012 she pushed the album to April 3, 2012. On March 1, 2012, Minaj revealed the album artwork for through Twitter. The deluxe album artwork was released on March 8, 2012. The deluxe album includes three bonus tracks and a T-shirt of the artwork. When Minaj was then asked to describe the album in one word, she responded, "FREEDOM." In an interview following the premiere, Minaj told Seacrest, "I've never had this much fun recording music in my life. My first album I was very guarded. I felt like I was making music to please everyone else. I had to be politically correct, but this album I am just creating music, and it there's such a big difference. Literally in the studio we were cracking up laughing, having fun, and enjoying ourselves. The music itself your going to get every side that I've ever shown and then a little bit extra. I've tried to make it very, very balanced, because I don't ever want to be boxed in, and that's always what drives me. So I made a very diverse album." She added that with her first album, she "was a too open Nicki Minaj. It felt more to me like a diary, the songs were more introspective and stuff like that...with this particular album I felt that it was time to give people a moment to enjoy the lyrics, and enjoy the beats, and enjoy the voices. When I was going to do my first album people would say, 'What is she going to talk about? Is she just going to talk about sex?' So I made it my business to make an album that did not talk about sex at all. I made it my business to make an album that wasn't a vulgur album, because on my mix tapes I was very, very...outlandish on my mix tapes. With this album I'm going back to not necessarily to that sound, but that feeling. The feeling of 'I don't care what you think!' That's what it is." Minaj confirmed that the album will include 22 tracks. Minaj told MTV that "April 3 is gonna be a doozy. It's gonna be crazy, it's gonna be important for hip-hop and pop culture. It's gonna be very big." Singles *The album's official lead single is "Starships". Minaj premiered the song on Ryan Seacrest's radio show on February 14, 2012. It was released to the iTunes store on the same day. The original lead single was intended to be "Va Va Voom" , but was changed to Starships. "Va Va Voom" was later featured on the deluxe edition of the album as a bonus track. "Starships" officially impacted US Top 40/Mainstream and Rhythmic radio on February 21, 2012. It debuted at number 9 on the Billboard Hot 100, and peaked at number 5, marking her second solo arrival in the Top 10 of the chart, after "Super Bass". Minaj became the highest charting female rapper in the UK with the single reaching number 2 on the UK Singles chart. "Starships" also managed to reach the Top 10 in several other countries worldwide. As of late March 2012, the song is certified Platinum in the United States. Filming of the "Starships" music video began on March 13, 2012 and ended on March 15, 2012. The video premiered on April 26, 2012 at 7:56 pm EST on MTV. *The second single is "Right by My Side" featuring Chris Brown. It officially impacted US Rhythmic and Urban radio on March 27, 2012. Following the album's release, the song debuted at number 51 on the Billboard Hot 100. Minaj started filming the video on April 28, 2012. The video premiered on May 16, 2012 at 6:56 pm EST on BET, FUSE, MTV Jams, MTV Hits, and mtvU. It was then be uploaded to VEVO at 7:00. *"Beez in the Trap", which features 2 Chainz, was sent to US urban radio stations on April 24, 2012, as the third US single. Minaj filmed the music video on March 18, 2012. The video was premiered on April 6, 2012 via Minaj's official VEVO account. Following the album's release, the song debuted at number 78 on the Billboard Hot 100. It jumped to number 63 in its second week. In its fourth week, it jumped to number 59. Promotional Singles *Minaj released the first promo single "Roman in Moscow" on December 2, 2011, however, it is not included on the album's official tracklisting. It debuted at number 64 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also charted at number 88 on the Canadian Hot 100 and at number 84 on the UK Singles Chart. Minaj initially said that the single "is like a teaser to Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, when I say it's a teaser, it's like a trailer to the movie, it's like setting the stage and I just wanted to touch the surface. It's the wackest thing on Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded". She elaborated on the lyrics of the song: "Well, Roman was there Moscow secretly because mother Martha wanted him to go there, so they put him in this thing with monks and nuns; they were trying to rehabilitate him, but I can't tell exactly what happened, you'll just see it in the video format, but let's just say he got out of there." The music video was filmed on December 18, 2011. *The second promotional single is "Stupid Hoe", a happycore song, released to iTunes on December 20, 2011 and produced by Diamond Kuts, credited as T. Dunham. It debuted at number 81 on the Billboard Hot 100. Minaj filmed the video for "Stupid Hoe" on December 19 and December 20, 2011. The music video was released January 20, 2012 on VEVO. It attained 4.8 million views within 24 hours of its release, breaking the VEVO record. Following the release of the video, the song jumped to number 59 on the Hot 100. It also charted at number 63 on the UK Singles Chart and at number 87 on the Canadian Hot 100. *Minaj premiered "Roman Reloaded" featuring Lil Wayne, on February 23, 2012 on radio station Hot97. It was released as a digital download on February 24, 2012 as the third promo single. It debuted at number 70 on the Billboard Hot 100. Other Songs "Turn Me On", a single from David Guetta's album Nothing but the Beat, appears on the deluxe edition of Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded. It reached number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. Minaj performed "Roman Holiday" live at the 54th annual Grammy Awards Ceremony on February 12, 2012. The performance, choreographed by Lady Gaga's former choreographer Laurie Ann Gibson, was much discussed and highly controversial. Following the album's release, two songs debuted on Billboard's "Bubbling Under Hot 100" chart, "Marilyn Monroe" at number 4 and "Roman Holiday" at number 13. Elsewhere, "Pound the Alarm" debuted at number 79 on the UK Singles Chart and at number 40 on the Canadian Hot 100. Also, "Whip It" debuted at number 98 on the UK Singles Chart and at number 85 on the Canadian Hot 100. "Va Va Voom" was initially planned to be the lead single, it was scheduled to impact Rhythmic radio on February 7, 2012 before being pushed back to February 14, 2012 for both Rhythmic and Top 40/Mainstream radio, however, the label scrapped its release at the last minute and decided to go with "Starships" as the lead single. Minaj filmed the music video for "Va Va Voom" on December 21, 2011. Following the album's release, the song debuted at number 79 on the Billboard Hot 100 and at number 74 on the Canadian Hot 100. Reception Critical Reception Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded received generally mixed reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 60, based on 28 reviews, which indicates "mixed or average reviews". Although he complimented its first-half as "an amusement park for production lovers", Allmusic editor David Jeffries criticized the album's "iffy pop" and called it "a frustrating mix of significant and skippable." Kyle Anderson of Entertainment '' ''Weekly praised its "vivid prog-rap bangers", but viewed that too many tracks "leave Minaj simply treading the territory of other radio divas." Adam Fleischer of XXL wrote that the album is "a quasi-concept album revolving around Roman, without ever fully fleshing out the character; it’s also part rap album, part pop album without finding a way to seamlessly balance the two pursuits." Randall Roberts of the Los Angeles Times commended its "minimal, bouncy hip-hop tracks" for highlighting Minaj's "charm and achievement", but wrote that the album "drives off a cliff" with "dance pop songs as simple as they are generic", and ultimately called it "a disjointed, artistically confused release". Billboard commented that "Minaj spends more time exploring her musical identity on Roman Reloaded than she does perfecting one, which makes the album sound bloated and rushed." David Amidon of PopMatters accused her of "doubling down on her cartoonish elements" and criticized its first half as "very poorly thought out rap music masquerading as pop", while panning its second half as "frilly, unessential pop music". John Calvert of The Quietus described the album as "pop postmodernity in an advanced state of hollow, banal meaningless" and panned its stretch of "conservative, cheering, melodically powerful pop songs" as having "absolutely nothing to do with Minaj's art". Kitty Empire of The Observer criticized its pop-end as "an aggressive bid for Gaga's territory." Slant Magazine's Matthew Cole panned it as a "mediocre rap album" and wrote of Minaj's performance, "When she isn't rapping, Minaj conveys no personality". Emily Mackay of NME commented that the album "shows range, sure, but it feels so disparate that it's just baffling", adding that "There's eccentric, and then there's zany for the sake of it." However, BBC Music's Al Fox commended the album's direction and wrote that it "unfolds an immeasurable amalgam of genres and inspirations, all fused together in a diamond-encrusted bubble of futuristic, day-glo hip hop. The energy is palpable, the pace rarely lets up, and personality pervades throughout." Rolling Stone writer Jody Rosen called it a "filler-free mega-pop album" and commented that "the energy never flags". Jessica Hopper of Spin praised Minaj's "rap offerings" as "nearly flawless" and wrote of the album's portion of pop tracks, "Her artistic potency dissolves, and she's just another well-finessed quirky diva". Tom Ewing of The Guardian complimented its "half-dozen tracks of blistering, filthy, idea-jammed hip-hop" and wrote in conclusion, "the record is too long, horribly inconsistent, and makes no attempt to marry its rap and pop impulses. But that doesn't matter – at their best the styles are wedded anyway by a particular frenzy, a sense that Minaj comes with no off switch or lower gear." Genevieve Koski of The A.V. Club called the album "an intermittently great, but ultimately scattershot effort that’s undermined by its efforts to please everyone". In his consumer guide for MSN Music, Robert Christgau gave the album an A– rating, indicating "the kind of garden-variety good record that is the great luxury of musical micromarketing and overproduction." Commercial Performance The album debuted in at number one on the UK Albums Chart and the UK R&B Albums Chart. Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded is the first album by female rap artist to chart at number one in the United Kingdom, with first week sales of 47,000 copies. The album also debuted at number one on the Scottish Albums Chart. On the Australian Albums Chart, Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded debuted at number five and on the Australian Urban Albums Chart it debuted at number two. For the week ending April 10, the album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart selling 253,000 copies in its first week. This marked Minaj's second number-one album in that country following her last studio album Pink Friday which peaked at number one in February 2011 and selling 375,000 in its first week. As of May 13, 2012, the album has sold 454,000 copies in the US. Promotion On April 3, 2012, Minaj held an album signing at a Best Buy store in New York City. Minaj travelled to the UK for a week of promotion in April. HMV held a competition for fans, where 500 winners would get the chance to meet Minaj on April 19, 2012, in one of their stores in Bayswater, London, where she would sign their albums. Minaj also appeared on The Graham Norton Show, which was aired on April 20, 2012. On the same day, she visited BBC Radio 1 for an interview with Nick Grimshaw. Live Performances On February 12, 2012, Minaj performed "Roman Holiday" at the 54th Grammy Awards. It was the first song ever performed on the Grammy stage by a solo female rapper. The performance borrowed elements of the classic horror film, The Exorcist, and was the most highly discussed performance of the night, as well as sparking controversy. Minaj said in an interview with Rap-up “I had this vision for Roman Zolanski to be sort of exorcised—or actually he never gets exorcised—but people around him tell him he’s not good enough because he’s not normal, he’s not blending in with the average Joe. And so his mother is scared and the people around him are afraid because they’ve never seen anything like him. He wanted to show that not only is he amazing and he’s sure of himself and confident, but he’s never gonna change, he’s never gonna be exorcised. Even when they throw the holy water on him, he still rises above.” MTV said Minaj's "Roman Holiday" "was the most elaborate of the night's Grammy performances and (had) everyone talking." Rolling Stone's Steve Knopper called the performance "disturbing, but still somehow great." On February 26, 2012, Minaj performed "Starships" live for the first time along with "Moment 4 Life", "Turn Me On" and "Super Bass" at the 2012 NBA All-Star Game. She has also performed "Starships" on the eleventh series of American Idol on March 29, 2012. On April 4, 2012, Minaj performed a 40-minute mini-concert for BET's 106 & Park. Minaj performed "Starships", "Right by My Side" and "Super Bass" in Times Square, hosted by Nokia, on April 7, 2012. Tour In March 2012, Minaj announced the Roman Reloaded Tour, which will kick off May 2012. Track Listing The track listing and track lengths per Minaj's official website and Amazon.com, respectively: Deluxe Edition iTunes explicit version bonus track *(*) denotes co-producer. *(^) denotes additional production. *The hook to "I Am Your Leader" partly melodically samples the verses from We Wish You A Merry Christmas. *"Press Conference" is only featured on the explicit version of the standard or deluxe versions of the iTunes version. On the clean version, the song was available for only the first week of release. *On the edited version of the album, the explicit version of "Starships" is used. Also, on the iTunes clean version, "Starships" is omitted, due to both standard and deluxe editions being partial albums. *On the physical deluxe version of the album, David Guetta is not listed as a collaborator on the track "Turn Me On". *On the physical standard and deluxe versions of the album, DJ Diamond Kuts is credited as T. Dunham on the track "Stupid Hoe". *On the digital standard and deluxe versions of the album, Ester Dean is credited as Esther Dean. *On the Best Buy version of the album, Marissa Bregman is listed as a featured vocalist on the track "Roman Holiday" *The iTunes clean version was re-released on May 11, 2012, which made "Starships" the edited version, and "Press Conference" was available again. Bonus area: Going to the bonus area on Minaj's official website will allow you to enter a competition to win one of 100 limited edition prints. Charts ; Release History Category:Nicki Minaj discography Category:Nicki Minaj albums Category:Roman Zolanski Category:Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded